


Christmas at Baker Street (Part 2/2: Lestrade)

by orphan_account



Series: Christmas At Baker Street [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Grief, John/Lestrade bromance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 00:41:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part 2 of my submission for BBC Sherlock Secret Santa on Tumblr. Merry Christmas, Sillysinz! Lestrade's first Christmas post-Reichenbach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas at Baker Street (Part 2/2: Lestrade)

t’s been a while since his last traditional Christmas. Or rather, his last traditional, _comfortable_ , Christmas. It was 2007, and his wife still loved him.

They’re childless, Greg and Cat Lestrade; although Cat has a now grown-up daughter from a previous marriage. Beth lived with them for six years, and as awkward as it had been at first, Lestrade loved her. He maintains that twelve is the best age for a child to be, partly because they were all happy that year, and teenagers are the spawn of Satan, but mostly because Beth was a tom boy then and they went to barbecues and Lestrade tried to teach her football in the back garden. He failed, unfortunately - Mr. Reeves next door complained about the thud of the styrofoam ball (‘Come on, you can hardly hear it!’) and the bombardment of shrieking laughter, which, unfortunately, was a little more audible.

That was autumn and then came Christmas. After that he’d had to work late a lot because of that nasty serial killer working in Soho and who came with it. The police were stumped. Greg was stumped. The only person to throw any light on the matter was a young cocaine addict who rolled his eyes more than should probably be legal (and it _wouldn’t_ , if Greg had had anything to do with it, _bloody_ eye-rolling) and called everyone idiots.

It’s harder, being a policeman and knowing Sherlock Holmes, a lot because of the terrible things he says to Deputy Commissioners and his inability to filter his deductions, but also because the man _sees_ everything. The simplest crimes are suddenly grotesque and elegant, writhing with subtext and double double bluffs and pretty much anything to make the detective inspector’s life more difficult.

To be honest, he doesn’t know whether or not to be grateful to Sherlock anymore.

(Except that’s a lie, he does know, and he is grateful, because once you start seeing those things you can never stop and he doesn’t want to be blind, that’s not why he’s in this job.)

He’s better now that John’s here, easier to see past all the ice cold genius and analytical brain to the fact that he is a human after all.

 _What genius?_ asks a treacherous little voice in his head, the same one that tells him, _your fault. He was a_ fraud, it patters away quietly.

_Fraud fraud fraud fraud fraud._

_No_ , he tells it. _No he wasn’t. I’m never listening to you again_. And he curses himself for a coward; he can’t stop thinking in the present tense.

***

This Christmas is not traditional. But at least it’s honest. His wife is probably spending it with the P.E. teacher somewhere and he wastes Christmas Eve watching Delia on TV and being glared at by doctors and lawyers over their stupid, expensive coffees at the cafe on the noisy main road. He phones Beth and they have a kind-of, stilted conversation over the smell of cinnamon and the whoosh of traffic and people talking. She asks him to give her away. If he’s going to get poetic, he can’t help but think he did that a very long time ago.

At six, he buys an obscene amount of alcohol and makes his way to Baker Street. John opens the door; Mrs. Hudson is visiting her sister or family or someone, although she’ll be back tomorrow - apparently she says she won’t let John spend Christmas day on his own.

‘Neither will I, you silly prick.’ says Lestrade uncomfortably, and John looks offended and then his gravelly voice chokes into something that might be a laugh.

Once the pleasantries are out of the way (Thank God) they get riproaring drunk and watch bad telly - or, they get too drunk to watch the bad telly. It’s awkward until the alcohol kicks in; after that they talk about past Christmas’s until it all devolves, rather interestingly, into a sly, and extremely strategic, tiddlywinks competition.

(You can’t beat the old games.)

FIN


End file.
